PlayStation 4 exclusive sandbox thing Dreams will launch in 2018, a new trailer has confirmed.

It's the first we've really heard of Dreams in some time - although there's no narrower date in 2018 mentioned.

The project has been in the works at LittleBigPlanet studio Media Molecule for years - it was first announced back at E3 2015 as a pretty nebulous creation tool concept and hasn't really got a whole lot less nebulous since.

Sony has announced the full timetable for its 2017 PlayStation Experience event, due to be held - and livestreamed - from 4am on Saturday, December 9th, in the UK. Notable occurrences include the first new showing of Media Molecule's Dreams in absolutely ages, as well as a chat with the cast of Uncharted and The Last of Us Part 2.

Sony readily admits that its biggest reveals of 2017 have already been shown at this year's E3 and Paris Games Week, but it does promise "a few stocking stuffers" during PSX's opening event. These will apparently include "candid" discussions with developers, updates on key titles, and special announcements.

Once the initial festivities are over, early risers will have a good few hours to recuperate, as the PSX panels don't begin in earnest until 7pm in the UK.

It's hard to argue with Sony's first half of 2017. The PlayStation 4 has enjoyed a number of exciting console exclusives, including Horizon: Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, Persona 5 and Nioh. But after watching Sony's E3 2017 media briefing this week, I couldn't help but feel the next six months look decidedly pedestrian in comparison.

Alex Evans on turning players into developers, and the possibility of micro-publishing.

Here's a question that's become familiar in recent years: what is it you actually do in this game then? Sean Murray of Hello Games, the small studio behind the mind-bogglingly large No Man's Sky, has been fielding it for a while, and now it's the turn of Media Molecule on behalf of its ambitious PlayStation 4 exclusive Dreams. Alex Evans, Dreams' technical director and the studio's co-founder, is something of a veteran in this regard - rewind a few years to a time before LittleBigPlanet's release in 2008, when all there was to go on was a high-minded GDC demo, and it's a question that was being asked regularly. This is a studio with a knack, it seems, for making games that can be impossible to pin down at first sight.

At last we know more about the kinds of things we'll be doing in Media Molecule's enigmatic new PS4 game Dreams. Studio co-founders Alex Evans and Mark Healy took to Sony's Paris Games Week presentation stage for a demonstration.